[NewMusic] a little bit of everything

[Phillip Greenlief]

-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of andrew wilshusen
Subject: Re: [NewMusic] a little bit of everything

i have taken to notating my roughly composed drum
solos by drawing little sketches of what i want done
in the sort of style that i want it done in.  for
instance, if i want to rub brushes violently on a oven
grate, i'll draw a simple sketch of brushes being
rubbed violently on an oven grate.  doubt that helps,
but....

PG:
Cool. I have been trying to get away from graphic notation in this
particular series of pieces. But of course, I salute you - carry on,
keep writing.

I started out by composing about 38 sketches, just melodies that I would
start - sometimes finish, sometimes not. I wrote most of them while
watching Antonioni's LaAventura, L'Eclisse, and Red Desert with the
sound off.

Then I started to flush them out. I knew I was writing for saxophone,
bass, drums. I know - tired ensemble concept, but I entered this trying
to do something different. Who knows if that is possible at this point.
But I've had fun trying to play with where the voice is in the ensemble,
and it's also been a series of pieces where I've been trying to
challenge my overall rhythmic concept.

I rehearsed the tunes tonight with Lisa Mezzacappa and Jason Levis, who
were reading them down better than I was (you write stuff without
playing it, and then all of a sudden you have to play it - yikes!). I
flushed out about 9 of them, and we read through those - a lot of the
things were similar - I suppose I didn't flush out melodies with enough
variation, so I'm going back and work on the other sketches and try to
come up with 10 pieces out of the total number of sketches. It should
work, there's a lot of material to choose from. I started thinking I
would write more than I would use - I literally wrote every melody that
jumped into my head while I was watching those films. It's been a cool
project so far. 

I'll be in Portland during the last week of March with Torsten and Dylan
- I think we play Tuesday or Wednesday that week - still waiting to find
out - I hope I see you while I'm up there Andrew!